the great albums (xi) - the pleasure principle

I can't say I expected this to figure on here, either, but recent listens have convinced me it ought to see the light of day.

Almost a concept album (Numan was virtually a concept per se), it took aspects of Kraftwerk and Bowie (to my ears, at least) and melded them into a pop approach that worked for a few short years. There was always more going on than people gave him credit for - but disaffection, isolation and fear hardly endear themselves to the populace.


The singing isn't accomplished, nor even all that pleasurable, but it didn't need to be. That wasn't the point.

And Cars is one of the all-time great songs - you know you agree.

kindle in the uk (soon)

And, equally as soon (like, end of August) in my grasp - I've pre-ordered a wi-fi only version (see here for details).

If I get cold feet over the next few weeks I can always cancel the order I guess.

Better make sure I wear some warm socks then...

if two walk together...

...they must be agreed on their posture!

(Photo supplied by Albert)

is that email a tiger?

“Always on” may not be the most productive way to work. One of the reasons for this will become clearer in the chapter on staying cool under pressure; however, in summary, the brain is being forced to be on “alert” far too much. This increases what is known as your allostatic load, which is a reading of stress hormones and other factors relating to a sense of threat. The wear and tear has an impact. As Stone says, “This always on, anywhere, anytime, anyplace era has created an artificial sense of constant crisis. What happens to mammals in a state of constant crisis is the adrenalized fight-or-flight mechanism kicks in. It’s great when tigers are chasing us. How many of those five hundred emails a day is a tiger?”

(from Your Brain At Work by David Rock, quoted by Matt Perman)

Church Going (Philip Larkin)

Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new-
Cleaned or restored? Someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate, and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort or other will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognizable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation - marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these - for whom was built
This special shell? For, though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognised, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

on the church, active & passive

As we let Paul form our understanding of what goes on in church, what strikes us is that the church is primarily the action of God in Christ through the Spirit. God and Jesus are the subject of nine active verbs that tell us what is going on in church: Jesus is our peace (Eph. 2:14), he made us one (v.14), he broke down the dividing wall of hostility (v.14), he abolished the law (v.15), he created one new humanity (v.15), he made peace (v.15), he reconciled (v.16), he put to death (v.16), he proclaimed peace (v.17).

And insofar as we are included in the action, the action is not something that we do but something done to us. Paul uses five passive verbs to tell us how we get included in the action: we are brought near (v.13), the Spirit gives us access (v.18), we are built upon the foundation (v.20), we are joined together (v.21), we are built together (v.22). Simple copulas name the identities that we acquire by God's action, We are identified as citizens and members of the church. When we are pulled into the action, it is God who pulls us in. We acquire our identity not by what we do but by what is done to us.

Eugene H. Peterson, Practise Resurrection, p.117

the great albums (x) - pet sounds

It's a brilliantly sunny summer's day, with just the faintest breeze, cooling you enough to stay on the beach. All is relaxed and life is as good as you'd ever hoped it could be. But, slowly, and almost without being noticed, the clouds begin to gather, away on the horizon and slowly invade what was unbroken blue above you. The faint breeze strengthens and the clouds darken; the threat of rain is not empty words. And you know that life will never be so simple again.


The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds is everything you ever heard it was. And probably more.

a fresh translation

Actually, the NRSV isn't all that fresh now, in the sense of being newly-done. But its handling of 'that we may walk in them' (good works) in Ephesians 2:10 struck me in a fresh way:

"For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life."

on acquired passivity

Grace originates in an act of God that is absolutely without precedent, the generous, sacrificial self-giving of Jesus that makes it possible for us to participate in resurrection maturity. It is not what we do; it is what we participate in. But we cannot participate apart from a willed passivity, entering into and giving ourselves up to what is previous to us, the presence and action of God in Christ that is other than us. Such passivity does not come easy to us. It must be acquired.

Eugene H. Peterson, Practise Resurrection, p.95

on the sentence that is ephesians 1:3-14

Who can resist this marvellous, tumbling cataract of poetry that introduces us to the vast and intricate complexities of this world in which we live? Not many. Paul is playful, extragant and totally engaging as he tells us what is going on in this God-created, Christ-saved, Spirit-blessed world into which we have been born and are now growing up. This is no small, cramped world in which we live from hand to mouth. The horizons are vast. The heavens are high. The oceans are deep. We have elbow room to spare.

The sheer size, the staggering largeness, of the world into which God calls us, its multi-dimensional spaciousness, must not be reduced to dimensions that we are cosily comfortable with. Paul does his best to prevent us from reducing it. Sin shrinks our imaginations. Paul stretches us. He counters with holy poetry. If we calculate the nature of the world by what we can manage or explain, we end up living in a very small world. If we are going to grow to the mature stature of Christ, we need conditions favourable to it. We need room. The Ephesian letter gives us room, dimensions deep and wide. Ephesians plunges us into ocean deeps, and we come up gasping for air. This is going to take some getting used to.

Eugene H. Peterson, Practise Resurrection, p.54

on truly hating sin and not just its consequences

A man who only opposes the sin in his heart for fear of shame among men or eternal punishment from God would practice the sin if there was no punishment attending it. How does this differ from living in the the practice of the sin? Those who belong to Christ, and are obedient to the Word of God, have the death of Christ, the love of God, the detestable nature of sin, the preciousness of communion with God, and a deep-rooted hatred of sin as sin to oppose to all the working of lust in their hearts.

John Owen (quoted in Tim Chester You Can Change, p.126)

on the ascension

Knowing this [the ascension of Jesus], with the knowiug elaborated and deepened in worship, the church has the neccesary room to live robustly under the conditions of resurrection. If we don't know this, the church, its imagination conditioned by death and the devil, will live timidly and cautiously.

Eugene H. Peterson, Practise Resurrection, p.44

growing up in church

Maturity develops in worship as we develop in friendship with the friends of God, not just our preferred friends. Worship shapes us not only individually but as a community, a church. If we are going to grow up into Christ we have to do it in the company of everyone who is responding to the call of God. Whether we happen to like them or not has nothing to do with it.

Eugene H. Peterson, Practise Resurrection, p.36

on the death of sin

No sin can be crucified either in heart or life unless it first be pardoned in conscience, because there will be want of faith to receive the strength of Jesus, by whom alone it can be crucified. If it be not mortified in its guilt, it cannot be subdued in its power.

William Romaine (quoted in You Can Change by Tim Chester, p.49)

on study leave & reading books...

This week is study leave for me. Over the past few months I decided I'd like to look at the topic of transformation - how people change, how they grow to spiritual maturity. To help me with that, I've chosen a number of conversation partners (otherwise known as 'books') and in a variety of forms:


You Can Change - Tim Chester (online edition)
Virute Reborn - Tom Wright (paperback)
Pastoral Ministry According to Paul - James Thompson (Kindle ebook)
Inside Out - Larry Crabb (Kindle ebook)
Practise Resurrection - Eugene Peterson (paperback)


To help me work through them, I'm using Todoist - I've set-up a project category called Books I'm Reading (fairly obvious, huh!) and added each book as a task in that project, with each chapter listed as a sub-task. As each chapter is read, so it gets ticked as 'done'; when all sub-tasks are done, the book is read.


(The project list also has other books I'm currently reading - my brain will frazzle soon)


You'll notice that I'm reading in a variety of forms - online, ebook and good old paper. That's only semi-intentional - I bought the ebooks largely due to easy availability and price. I can also add notes to them, which is helpful for a study week. And it means, via the iPod, that I can take them with me should I choose to study other than at home, without being weighed down by too many physical books.


Will I get through all I'd like to in this week? Will Todoist help? And will I tire of reading Kindle books on the PC & the iPod and order a proper Kindle? Only time will tell...